Y Combinator funds Startups and gives worthy new businesses seed funding in exchange for a percentage of their business.
Y combinator are one of the best known organisations in this sector and most widely respected. They offer seed funding at around $20,000 normally for a stake the size of 2-10%
If you are one of the chosen few, the money is not earth shattering at first, it’s not meant to be. You will be with like minded souls and you will have enough for living costs. It is the guidance and experience that will absolutely be worth it’s weight in gold that you will receive.
You will be helped in the following area:
- Guidance and Direction from experienced professionals
- Introductions to important contacts within the industry.
- How to pitch your startup and how to close deals.
- Protection and advice. Merely being in Y combinators camp will open doors for you and gain respect.
- Full legal advice from lawyers and all patents, trademarks etc. filed in order to avoid future nightmares.
- Help recruiting.
- Mediation, counselling and support.
YC have helped hundreds of startups over the years. Mnay have been huge successes that you will have heard of:
including Loopt, Reddit, Clustrix, Wufoo, Scribd, Xobni, Weebly, Songkick, Disqus, Dropbox, ZumoDrive, Justin.tv, Heroku, Posterous, Airbnb, Heyzap, Cloudkick, DailyBooth, WePay, and Bump.
Y Combinator recruit and fund startups during 2 phases annually. During the first 3 months of the year and then during the summer . More Info Here at their Website
Great advice here about: How to Fund a Startup.
I will personally say it would be an absolute dream to go and stay with YC for a few months and throw myself into a latest project with all that support and experience to draw from. It would be hard NOT to succeed with those guys. They really come across as a superb set of guys running it who genuinely want to see successes.
It’s not all about the money, they take a very small cut for what they do and allow startups to sell out early too. It’s your call.
What you waiting for? We even got the application form for you!
Might see you there…………………………
